Cradling the blood

in my palm –

a T-square cut,

a seeping skin –

I swirl the blood

in my hand, like

globules of mercury.

I hold my blood like

a living thing, coming alive

with oxygen

only when cut.

Locusts & cicadas,

the hot running whir

like nature’s computer

overheating.

The molecules of breeze

coming through the

window screens.

The air is making love

to us all the time,

the unbidden smell-

memory

the closest you will

come to feeling like

you are only a sweet beautiful womb.

My instructor this semester, Ellen McGrath Smith, turned me on to the August Poetry Postcard Fest, in which, every day, poets send each other short, original poems on ordinary (or utterly strange) postcards.

As part of this writing and documentation, I’ll be posting the poems that I send away each day to far-flung places around the nation and globe. And I’ll post a poem or two of the ones that come to me.

The image with this post is of my postcards.  Hurray for free postcards from Vistaprint.

Here are the first few poems I’ve sent so far:

Ripening (7.28.2010)

I am from the ginger,

cardamom, kale,

chiffonade.

I am from the summers

without clouds, the longing

for a parasol.

I am from bees dipping

into springloaded

flowers,

from legs covered in

sweat & pollen,

from the dog days.

*

Cutting the Cherries (7.28.2010)

A slip of the knife,

into blood-red flesh,

curving to lance the

sticky pit.

My hands covered

in violent juice.

Yes, I meant it,

this sweet popping,

excising the stone

from the heart

of summer.

Is it murder if it’s

delicious?